Bill Piper has always had an affinity for motor vehicles – from involvement in kart and motor racing in the early 1970s, through to his current passion for sports cars (both hi-tech and low-tech!) He also has great interest in the conversion of vehicles for use by disabled people; his regular work with a selection of WAVCA members being testament to this.

Bill worked at Ford Motor Company for several years, having previously been awarded a scholarship. In 1987, he was approached by a small company who wished to produce replica vans using Ford components. However, to do this successfully they needed to obtain Type Approval for their vehicles. Piper Consultants was therefore born, to meet the homologation needs of companies throughout the UK and EU. Among its many achievements, the company was instrumental in obtaining the first approval to the new ‘UK Low Volume Type Approval’, in 1993. Bill is one of only a handful of Type Approval Consultants the Department of Transport regularly confer with - mostly on proposals for future legislation.

Simon joined Certech in 2013 after a long career in Ford, with roles in Car, Tractor, Industrial Equipment, Heavy Truck and Light Truck Divisions.

He has always enjoyed cross functional roles, especially those in Engineering and latterly Sales and Marketing where a comprehensive understanding of multi-stage build vehicles was developed over his career. Simon was the architect of the highly successful Transit One Stop range of turn-key bodied Chassis Cabs and Bus models, amongst the first to receive full multi-stage European approval under 2007/46/EC.

In recent years his focus has been on managing the impact of Commercial Vehicle ECWVTA on vehicle sales and registration. A major programme of IT system development and integration with AFRL registration routines for multi-stage build vehicles. The systems development and the parallel Dealer Training seminars bring a unique knowledge base of Type Approval application within the registration and sales process to Certech.